Midfielder coming from Ivory Coast

The Sounders' PR office reports that the club practiced for an hour and 40 minutes this morning under clear Spanish skies and warmer temperatures (although it's hard to imagine anything better than Puget Sound is getting today).

The work consisted of an 8-v-8 possession and movement-focused drill, shooting from distance and, finally, a 5-v-5 game. Three additional players were deployed behind the attacking goal and along each sideline.

Here's part of the report:

The Orange team won, 5-1, again in an exercise designed to emphasize spacing and movement. The contest was split into multiple two-minute segments with players rotating into the off-field positions. Roger Levesque, Stephen King, Leo Gonzalez, Osvaldo Alonso and Steve Zakuani scored for the winners, with Tye Perdido replying for the Blue.

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With another game on Sunday, Sigi Schmid gave his team the afternoon off.

Sounders FC faces Norway’s Stabak at 6 a.m. Sunday (PT). There will be no training on Monday.

Quotes from head coach Sigi Schmid:

On playing time limits for Stabak) "We’re going to decide later because it looks like we’ve arranged a scrimmage for Wednesday morning, so that will be in addition to the tournament game on Thursday. We will meet as a staff and determine how we’ll split up the times in these last three games."

On the availability of players for Sunday)Sanna is getting better day today, but I doubt he’s going to play tomorrow. I doubt Ianni will play either. We’ll see if Fucito is able to give us 20 minutes. We have a trialist coming in tomorrow, a player from the Ivory Coast who’s played in the Spanish first division. He’s a wide player and we’ll try to get him some minutes on the game, and obviously give him a look the rest of the week in training, with more minutes in either the game Wednesday or Thursday.

on the emphasis of training) We’re trying to stress our movement off the ball. We’re also trying to stress getting the ball out of tight spaces, opening the game up, using our vision, getting the ball off our feet a little bit quicker. We thought we were a little bit hesitant, a little bit slow in terms of how we played against Rosenborg. We know we’re capable of doing more than that and we need that movement off the ball to be dangerous attacking wise. So that was our main emphasis over the last couple days.

On second-round opponent Stabak) They’ve got good physical players, guys with good size, that are going to challenge and hold balls up, with hard running guys up front. Their level of play is little bit behind Rosenborg, but they’re a good team and it’s going to be good opposition for us.

More notes: The tentative training game schedule for Wednesday morning would be against FC Midtjylland of Denmark…Technical director Chris Henderson participated in the first portion of drills at training Wednesday…By Sunday evening the Sounders FC expect the arrival of trialist Felix Ettien, 30, an international midfielder for the Ivory Coast and veteran of over 300 appearances (including three seasons in La Liga) for Spain’s Levante…Four players were limited in their training participation: Michael Fucito (left hamstring strain), Taylor Graham (left hamstring strain), Patrick Ianni (left osteitis pubis) and Sanna Nyassi (left groin pain)…Training on the field adjoining the Sounders FC on Saturday was the England U-23 Women’s National Team.